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Science 12 January 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5809, pp. 226 - 229
DOI: 10.1126/science.1136294
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Reports

Late Pleistocene Human Skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, and Modern Human Origins

F. E. Grine,1* R. M. Bailey,2 K. Harvati,3 R. P. Nathan,4 A. G. Morris,5 G. M. Henderson,6 I. Ribot,7 A. W. G. Pike8

The lack of Late Pleistocene human fossils from sub-Saharan Africa has limited paleontological testing of competing models of recent human evolution. We have dated a skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, to 36.2 ± 3.3 thousand years ago through a combination of optically stimulated luminescence and uranium-series dating methods. The skull is morphologically modern overall but displays some archaic features. Its strongest morphometric affinities are with Upper Paleolithic (UP) Eurasians rather than recent, geographically proximate people. The Hofmeyr cranium is consistent with the hypothesis that UP Eurasians descended from a population that emigrated from sub-Saharan Africa in the Late Pleistocene.

1 Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794–4364, USA.
2 School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
3 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
4 Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK.
5 Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town, Observatory 7925, Cape Town, South Africa.
6 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PR, UK.
7 Département d'Anthropologie, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada.
8 Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, 43 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1UU, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: fgrine{at}notes.cc.sunysb.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)